


Shards

by emei



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-26
Updated: 2007-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:33:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emei/pseuds/emei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She dies on a Wednesday, three minutes and fifteen seconds past four. The sharp edged fragments of wood in her hand will confuse the police."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shards

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat dark and experimental, about 500 words. Thank you, [](http://yamapea.livejournal.com/profile)[**foreword**](http://yamapea.livejournal.com/), for looking this over! Comments and criticism are very welcome.

VIII. words shatter in her eyes, splinters fall over the floorboards and this is all there ever is, soft fingertips and the words that explode against her skull

IV. she is watching not feeling and nothing can right this world again

VI. Tom’s voice echoes through her sleep, twisting around her, calling. She wakes up feeling eleven years old, corrupted, wet. She fingers the scar on the inside of her wrist that she tells Hermione is from a rough bludger. Her memory has black holes. Sometimes she thinks he slit her open and drank her blood the same way she’s been told Quirrell killed unicorns.

XIII. She dies on a Wednesday, three minutes and fifteen seconds past four. The sharp edged fragments of wood in her hand will confuse the police. They are bloodstained, pressed into her palm.

I. Mum’s chipped teacups. Newly washed, in rows, mended with care. Dusty shards on the floor.

III. Ron?

IX. Her memory is fragmentary but this is not the place to remember what she does. People look away when she gets up to walk down the street. A man gave her a jumper once. He had white hair. All his hair was white.

XV. She goes out with a bang, but of a different kind. Unexpected. It is all too mundane.

X. The firefly appears by the pond behind the house, wings glimmering in the sun. It settles on her hand and she is frozen in that moment in time. Firefly against summer skin, she longs for the image to replace these gritty walls and pulsating streets.

XI. “Oh god. Oh finally. Come here. Get up. Here, take my hand. My god, your hands… Listen to me Ginny; I’m taking you home now. Would you please just look at me? Ginny. Fuck. I’m apparating us. Hold on now.”

V. The flat is Hermione’s. Her parents pay the rent when she can’t and those months she is bristling; the half-moons beneath her eyes turn their darkest purple. When Ginny goes out and comes home in the morning with muggle money crumpled in her fist she argues and screams and rants into exhaustion. Neither of them sleeps those nights. In the end she cries against Ginny’s neck and takes the money anyway. She does it every time.

VII. Their kisses taste of smoke, the cigarettes kill all other tastes. That’s why she keeps stealing them when she can. Hermione hates the smell, the smoke, but she always stares at the red glow, enchanted.

XII. Hermione feels brittle under her hands, skin too white and stretched thin over her ribs. She’s warm though and the heat of her body trickles into Ginny. Life, trickling.

XIV. It is a meaningless death, an accident. She’s no hero.

XVI. Hermione starts nicking cigarettes, sits on the windowsill in the apartment, staring at the night-lights, smokes and coughs. She does not mind the way the chill invades the unheated room.

II. Harry? Are you there, Harry?  



End file.
